Posted by Rick Denney on August 21, 2003 at 01:06:28:
In Reply to: Sound "blending" posted by Doug on August 19, 2003 at 23:13:12:
To me, blend means taking different sounds and doing something to a common purpose. If all the sounds were the same, it wouldn't be a blend. Blended wine starts with a mix of grapes, blended Scotch whiskey takes spirits from different malt distillations, and so on. If the grapes were the same or only one malt was used, it wouldn't be a blend.
When I was in the Tubameisters, we had a Miraphone rotary tenor tuba on top, a compensating euphonium on the second part, me and my 621 F tuba on the third part, and a Miraphone 186 CC on the bottom. Four more different instruments would be hard to find, but we blended to the point where we had compliments on our ability to pass melodies back and forth without losing the consistency of the sound. Four Miraphone tubas wouldn't have blend--the sound would be homogeneous with no differences to make it a blend.
The last few band gigs I've played have been with me on the Holton and another player on a King 2341, another player on a G-50 like yours, and finally Bob P. on an CC Sear rotary (Cerveny?). As long as those guys played in tune with me (the reverse is hoping for too much, heh, heh), we blended just fine.
Rick "who used to play F tuba to add a bit of blend to a section of all rotary tubas" Denney